Mobile ticket sellers Gametime added a new feature to their app this week
that could draw a larger supply of concert and sports tickets to their
marketplace. Designed to make it easier for users to sell old-school printed
tickets via mobile, the “snap and sell” feature in Gametime feels something
like check scanning in mobile banking apps.

A user who clicks the “sell” button within Gametime can now use the
smarpthone’s camera and the company’s optical character recognition
technology to upload all their relevant ticket info to the mobile marketplace
automatically, no data entry required.
According to Gametime founder andCEO Brad Griffith, using most ticket sellers’ apps or mobile sites requires
about 75 taps’ worth of data entry for people who have a printed ticket to sell.

Gametime wanted to eliminate the friction. Its new feature requires 3 taps to
get from holding a ticket in your hand to listing it on the market.
After that,
tickets are automatically priced with data from Gametime.

The app gives sellers “surge pricing” capabilities without having to do any
price comparison research themselves.
Gametime has raised $13.3 million
in venture capital to-date. It started out selling sports tickets to people who
wanted to buy them at the last minute, but has since expanded into selling
concert tickets as well.
According to the company, more than 1.5 million
people have downloaded the app to-date.And the company has sold tickets
for 485 sports teams and 455 artists at more than 400 venues to-date.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 74 cents, significantly
higher than the expected 60 cents. Revenue for the quarter was $861 million,
above the anticipated $828 million and a 35% year-over-year increase.

“As a result of our new mobile experience, members are increasing their
activity on LinkedIn, helping drive strong levels of engagement across the
platform,” said CEO Jeff Weiner, in a statement.

Cumulative members increased by 19% to $433 million, seeing the most added users since the beginning of 2014.In particular, the talent solutionsrecruiter product saw revenue increase 41% year-over-year to $558 million. Sponsored content or “marketing solutions” revenue was up 29% and premium subscriptions brought in 22% more in sales.

LinkedIn are down 53% in the past year and closed Thursday at $122.94.
The company has a market cap of $16 billion.

The batteries developed for the high demands of all-electric Mercedes-Benz
cars are finding a new application as in-home energy storage units. Sound
familiar? Yeah, it’s a lot like the Tesla Powerwall.

Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG announced that the storage units
are being manufactured by its subsidiary Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE (Daimler
has a real love of all caps). The batteries are being sold, installed and
supported by partners like utility and solar tech companies. That makes sense,
because the storage units are usually installed along with solar panels. The
units are already available in Germany, and Mercedes says it will be
expanding the program internationally.

Up to eight of the columnar 2.5 kWh lithium-ion battery modules can be
combined, with a maximum capacity of 20 kWh all together. According to
Mercedes, this is enough to capture surplus solar power for later use with
“virtually no losses.” The price of the units hasn’t been disclosed, since it can
include several components: the unit itself (or two or three), maybe some
photovoltaic panels and the installation.

Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE has been making units like this since 2015 for
industrial uses. The systems were designed to be scalable; thus the quick
entry into the private home market. Daimler is banking on its energy storage
subsidiary in a big way — it’s invested more than $500 million in a second
battery factory at the Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE site that will begin operating in
the summer of 2017.

As a comparison, the Tesla Energy Powerwall serves the same purpose, with
arguably more style. The Powerwall has 6.4 kWh of energy storage “for daily
cycle applications,” according to the website. Like the Mercedes units, these
can be installed in multiples for solar systems that need to store more energy.
We do know how much the Powerwall costs — $3,500. We also know that
demand was high, with a reported 38,000 reservations when the Powerwall
was announced last year. That level of demand seems to leave plenty of room
for a competitor like Daimler AG to jump in with its road-tested battery
technology this year.

Over the last month, I've been working on a new app. Tether Alpha is a USB[2] tether solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that allows you to use your phone's data connection to get internet access on your desktop or laptop.

ClockworkMod Tether does not require root on your phone and does not require a separate tethering plan. Tether should work with any carrier and phone, and is not blockable or detectable by carriers[1]. To get around the root requirement on your phone, Tether will need to install a virtual network adapter on your computer; so there is a PC side install. [3]

I'm looking for meaningful feedback in the following areas:

1) Did you have problems installing it or getting it working? (If so, operating system? Ie, Windows 7 64 bit, etc)
2) How is your download speed once everything is set up?

The UI is pretty rough, the icons, and general app design are not final. I am just looking to make sure the underlying services all work properly.

The above links should automatically install the Android portion if you have USB debugging enabled on the phone, but if something goes awry, here's the Android APK:download apk

I am intentionally not providing any installation instructions, because I feel that if the app can't be set up without installation instructions, I have failed to make it easy enough to use. ;)
So please provide any feedback you may have if you have a hiccup during installation! (The final market released product will have instructions though)

This version will time bomb on January 7th. I'll release new versions before then, so if the app stops working, just check back here.

Thanks all!

[1] It functions as a proxy, and not as a NAT/masquerade solution that other tether solutions use. Though carriers can still check for http user agent string, but I have an idea to work around that. They typically check the TTL for desktop values. All usual carrier data charges and quotas will apply, but you will not need a separate tethering plan.

[2] I'm working on getting Bluetooth working as well.

[3] I wish I could not require a PC side installation, but it is simply not possible if the phone is not rooted.

[4] There is no UI for the Linux interface. Just sudo linux/run.sh after extracting the zip.